Varnishing five cabinet doors during Summer in Ajijic, Mexico - 2018

 We brought the last five doors on s\v Elegant'sea with us for varnishing this summer. All getting varnished with gloss.

June 2018- s/v Elegant'sea is currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico

July 2018- We are currently in Ajijic which is a town by Lake Chapala Mexico

 This was our second house sit which has a nice utility sink. 

I prepped all five items by washing them with TSP  and using #320 grit wet sand paper.

Lastly I used the red soft brush to get all the TSP etc off of the teak.

One done.

Two done.

These two small louvered doors go under the nav station.

 Prepping the louvered door that goes from the nav station into the lazarett. 

This give us access to the area in the lazarett where the electronics are. 

The good news is: These five doors are the last of the doors on the boat to be varnished! Now we have four big louvered doors, shutters that close up the pullman birth yet to-do but that may get farmed out.

 

Ok, time to get varnishing! We use a yogurt cup because the plastic will not melt with the thinner for the first coat. After that coat we use disposable plastic drinking cups.

 Starting the 90% varnish to 10% thinner coat.

 On the louvers we like to us a sponge brush at least at first so we can sponge up the extra varnish from the ends of the luvers. 

Debbie tapped the two cane doors.

 

We put the first coat on the front and back side.

 

All five pieces were prepped and all five got the first coat.

 

 

Putting on the first coat.

Good space to varnish in.

 

Back side and front have one coat. 

 

 

 The second coat we used a regular throw away brush.

We put two coats on both sides then the front side will get the est of the coats of varnish.

 Two coats on the cane doors.

 At three coats we decided to concentrate on one cane door as our house sit at this sit is winding down. The tape on the doors gets harder to get off over time so we varnish these first.

 

 So this cane door at three coats gets a real good sanding. 

 We are trying to level out the varnish. The grain of the wood makes the varnish lumpy or wavey and to get the can door to look like glass we need to level the varnish off now that we have built it up some. We use a small 2x2 or in this case we found a small piece of stick that fid in the sliding glass door, Wrapping the sand paper #220 on the stick makes it so we can sand flat.

Four coats now. This will take probably two more coats and we will call it done and move on.

In the time of not varnishing we will prep (sand 

 other pieces.